Growing up these days is no walk in the idealized child-friendly park. Kids face a variety of trend-based obstacles, from rubber-band bracelets to sexxxting. And crappy childhoods are now more expensive than ever!

The WSJ reports that New York school districts are bravely facing up to the two most perilous trends that threaten our youth: "Silly Bandz" bracelets, which take foreign, un-American, non-circular shapes; and the more innocuous trend of elementary school sexxting. New rules "would punish elementary school students who send sexually explicit messages or images with a suspension of up to 90 days."

The necessity of that rule is disturbing.

Sexting, of course, is the least of teens' trendy text-based worries. There is also the terrifying trend of "textual harassment," which now exists, thanks to a trend story in the Washington Post. Some teenagers, it seems, don't just send nice text messages; they send mean ones. Lots of them.

Kids: instead of gathering in mixed-gender groups, unsupervised, to sit on the gentle grass and snap each other with "Silly Bandz" while sending angry, sexual messages to one another electronically, why not show your parents some respect? Raising your misbehaving ass costs 22% more than it did 50 years ago. Sell off those Silly Bandz and get a job.